Satellite Program Network, or SPN, was a satellite and cable TV network which broadcast in the United States from 1979 to the mid 1980s. SPN was created by Ed Taylor, an associate of Ted Turner

Ted Turner

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

 and the head of the Southern Satellite Systems company. In 1985, SPN was acquired by Satellite Syndicated Systems

Satellite Syndicated Systems

Satellite Syndicated Systems was a company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1980s that provided distribution services of data for American teletext and other data services via communications satellite. They provided data distribution for the Electra teletext service which was carried on the VBI of...

 .

Among the programs broadcast on SPN were Video Concert Hall

Video Concert Hall

Video Concert Hall was an early U.S. television network launched on November 1, 1979, on the USA Network and on Showtime, featuring an unhosted rotation of music videos. Often credited as being the precursor to MTV, Video Concert Hall was reportedly the most popular programming on QUBE, a cable...

, an early music-video show (before the launch of MTV); News From Home, a program for Canadians in the US, hosted by early CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 news anchor Don Miller; The Shopping Game

The Shopping Game

The Shopping Game was an American game show created and produced by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir that aired on the Satellite Program Network ....

, a Nicholson-Muir game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

 produced in Nashville and hosted by Art James

Art James

Art James was an American game show host, best known for shows such as The Who, What, or Where Game and Pay Cards!. He was also the announcer on the game show Concentration....

; The Susan Noon Show, featuring celebrity interviews; Nutrition Dialogue, hosted by Dr. Betty Kamen; Sewing with Nancy

Sewing with Nancy

Sewing with Nancy is an American television show about sewing, hosted by Nancy Zieman. It made its debut on the now-defunct Satellite Program Network in September 1982. Later in the 1980s, September 1, 1982 PBS began airing the series, which is distributed by NETA...

; and Moscow Meridian, a current-affairs

Current affairs

Current affairs can refer to:*Current affairs : a genre of broadcast journalism* an approximate synonym for current events* an approximate synonym for politics* "Current Affairs", a song by Zion I from Heroes in the City of Dope...

 program produced by Soviet authorities and hosted by Vladimir Posner

Vladimir Posner

Vladimir Vladimirovich Posner , born 1 April 1934, is a Russian journalist best known in the West for appearing on television to represent and explain the views of the Soviet Union during the Cold War...

. Rerun

Rerun

A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...

s of old situation comedies and movies, mostly from low-budget

B movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

 studios, rounded out the schedule.

SPN later became Tempo Television. A Canadian regulatory description of the channel in 1988 said that Tempo's "schedule consists of outdoors, travel, general information and entertainment programming and classic feature films that are in the public domain." In 1988, by which time Tempo had 12 million subscribers (mainly in the South and Southwest), the channel was purchased by NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. It was relaunched in 1989 as the Consumer News and Business Channel, CNBC

CNBC

CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...

.